معرفی
Kalena E. Cortes is the Verlin and Howard Kruse '52 Founders Professor in the Department of Public Service and Administration at Texas A&M University's Bush School of Government and Public Service. She serves as the inaugural Director of the Bush School's Program in Education Policy (PEP) and maintains prestigious research affiliations as a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
Her academic background includes:
- Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley
- Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University
- Visiting scholar positions at Stanford and Harvard University's Graduate School of Education
Dr. Cortes specializes in the economics of education with a strong focus on equity and access issues. Her research identifies educational policies that improve outcomes for disadvantaged students across PreK-12 and postsecondary levels. She has made significant contributions in three key areas: improving academic performance of urban students, increasing access to postsecondary education, and raising educational attainment of immigrant students. More recently, she has pioneered innovative technology-mediated interventions, developing text-based parenting programs like Texts4Teens for middle school parents and Math FUNdations for elementary school children that target social-emotional development and math engagement.
Her recent scholarly work demonstrates a clear trajectory toward practical, evidence-based interventions that address educational disparities. Many of her newer publications focus on text message interventions, geographic barriers to education access, disciplinary policies, and the intersection of socioeconomic status with educational outcomes. Her research increasingly applies behavioral economics principles to develop scalable solutions for improving educational equity.
Dr. Cortes has received significant recognition for her scholarly contributions:
- Texas A&M's 2020 Presidential Impact Fellow designation
- 2021 Chancellor Enhancing Development and Generating Excellence in Scholarship (EDGES) Fellow
- Richard Musgrave Prize winner (2014) for best article in the National Tax Journal
- Faculty Fellow at the Greater Texas Foundation (2013-2016)
She has secured substantial research funding from major organizations including the Spencer Foundation, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Department of Education. Her service to the academic community includes editorial positions at leading journals and committee work focused on diversity in economics, having served six years (2017-2023) on the American Economic Association's Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession (CSMGEP).
Dr. Cortes leads the Texts4Teens research initiative, which develops and evaluates technology-mediated parent engagement strategies to improve educational outcomes for middle school students, with particular attention to social-emotional development and strengthening parent-child educational relationships.
